262

FAMILY VII.—GRYLLIDAE.

faintly visible in dried specimens. A black line, also on eachside of the thorax, continuous with a line of the same coloralong the sides of the wing-covers. Body above black, withindications of two rows of pale spots. Underside palebrown with a broken, blackish, spot-like stripe on each side.In the male the pale portion of the under side of the body isusually reduced to a stripe along the middle. The ovipositoris straight and pointed obliquely upwards, and is about aslong as the hind femora. Spines on tibiae of hind legs ratherlong. The wing-covers in the male are as long or almost aslong as the abdomen, and in the female they are about halfas long. The hind wings are over twice the length of thewing-covers, and project beyond like tails.

Length from 9-11 mm.; ovipositor, 8 mm.

Nemobius fasciatus, form vittatus Harris.

This form only differs from fasciatus in having the hindwings aborted; in color, size and mark-ings it is the same.

It is very abundant in open woodsand meadows near by, and is found fromJuly until severe frost. Even in earlywinter, during warm days and in sunnyspots, these insects are active. Like thelarger insect forming the genus Gryllusthey are chiefly solitary and nocturnal,yet may be seen in large numbers to-gether in fields and during the day.

They are very pugnacious, and notalone fight among themselves but sav-agely bite a straw if irritated with it.

Especially during their love season they Fig- no.— Nemobius fasti-

t i ♦, 1 ♦ eitus, form vittatus, fe-

are very quarrelsome, and pitch into male, original,each other while keeping up a constant stridulation. Prof.Scudder gives the following pleasing account of the soundsmade by this species, which is shown in fig. 170: